JBW » Kyoto

The Carbon Rush

24th June 2012

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiwgXGDsXPU]

A disturbing new film premiered recently at the Green Nation Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro in the run up to the Rio+20 Summit.

Entitled The Carbon Rush, the film reveals the unsavoury side of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which allows countries that are signatories to the Kyoto Protocol to implement emission-reduction projects in developing countries to earn carbon credits that can be counted towards meeting their national emission reduction targets.

According to the CDM website, there are currently 4259 registered projects, and there are a number of video clips that extol the virtues of such projects (see below). I shall reserve judgement until I get to see The Carbon Rush in full, but it seems to indicate that the CDM is susceptible to ‘market failure’ (to put it mildly).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0As6PHGJVFw&list=UUEBv6L0UIcPOrqMqGAOO69g&index=0&feature=plcp]

The opportunity cost of the Iraq War

17th May 2006

Image source: www.worldpress.org

Quite aside from the appalling human cost of the war in Iraq, according to a recent article, It’s only $300 billion, in the Washington Post, the economic cost will soon exceed the predicted cost of the Kyoto Protocol to the US economy. The irony is that this is what Dubya said at the G8 Meeting in March 2001: “I made it clear to our friends and allies that the methodology of the current protocol is one that, if implemented, would severely affect economic growth in America.”

So it’s not just blood for oil … it’s climate too.

The Minister for Greenwash

9th April 2005

The Rt Hon Ian McFarlane, MP
Image source: http://www.abc.net.au/rural/ outlook2002/image.htm

I had to smile the other day when I read that the Australian Energy Minister, Ian McFarlane, was reported to have told a conference organised by the coal industry in Sydney that they should clean up their publicity act, saying the future fuels issue had been taken over by a so-called green media machine. Meanwhile, his buddy, Ian Campbell, the (so-called) Minister for the Environment is trying convince Australian business that it isn’t losing out from the non-ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. As The Australian reported at the weekend, Australian businesses are having to resort to joint ventures with companies from New Zealand (a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol) in order to participate in the Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism project. (See below if the hyperlink is broken.)

Will Kyoto save Tuvalu?

15th February 2005

Image source: unfccc.int

That juggernaut of a lobby group, AOSIS, which (… ahem) as we all know, is the Alliance of Small Island States, will be rejoicing tomorrow when the Kyoto Protocol officially comes into effect. The question is, will this coalition of small island and low-lying coastal countries be any less vulnerable to the adverse effects of global climate change? Recent events in Tuvalu suggest that, in all likelihood, it will be too little, too late.

Gas Guzzlers 1 – 0 Common Sense

31st October 2003

Just when I was getting excited about the prospect of a paradigm shift in the editorial policy of The Economist, I’ve been brought back down to earth with a bump.

Another kick in the guts for Kyoto?

23rd August 2003

The Guardian reports today in an article entitled, Bush’s pollution charter, that the US Government ‘plans to open a huge loophole in America’s air pollution laws, allowing an estimated 17,000 outdated power stations and factories to increase their carbon emissions with impunity’.

A snowflake’s chance on an increasingly warm planet

18th June 2003

Recent research suggests that global warming is likely to occur faster than first thought. Given the trend in US foreign policy (“You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists“) and the very explicit way in which members of the ‘coalition of the unwilling’ are being treated (e.g. Chile, Canada, France), the new ‘friendship’ between the US and Australia will be increasingly difficult to break, especially with AUSFTA to bind the relationship. What chance then of John Howard signing the Kyoto Protocol so long as the US doesn’t?

Tag: Kyoto